Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/724773
9 0 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t TAKING ROOT John Stewart, proprietor of the Black Pig Meat Company in Sebastopol, California. A FEW YEARS AGO, A New Yorker cartoon showed a man looking up at a signpost at a crossroads. One sign pointed right and read "Fountain of Youth." The other sign pointed left and read "Fountain of Bacon." Like most people, I would have turned left, for what would life be without bacon? However, there's bacon and then there's bacon. Most commercial bacon is injected with saline solution and treated with liquid smoke in a curing process that takes just a day. But John Stewart, proprietor of Black Pig Meat Company in Sebastopol, California, makes bacon the old-fashioned way, dry curing pork bellies in brown sugar for three weeks and smoking them over smoldering apple wood for 12 hours. This is bacon the way farm families knew it when they slaugh- tered their own pigs and had a smokehouse out behind the barn. John and his wife Duskie Estes are the owners and Chefs of Zazu Kitchen + Farm in Sebastopol and win national awards for their efforts, especially their charcuterie. They were named the King and Queen of Porc at a recent Aspen Food and Wine Festival, and John's coppa salumi won a 2016 Good Food Award. Their bacon is at that quality level. Black Pig sells about 3,000 pounds of bacon a month. John and Duskie raise from five to ten pigs at their nearby farm, and source the rest of their pork bellies from Stone Valley Farm and Walnut Keep Farm in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Their home farm pigs are a cross between the Red Wattle and Mulefoot breeds. The Red Wattle genes contribute to fast growth, while the Mulefoot genes provide tasty meat com- bined with fine fat laced among the muscles. "My farm's pigs are more for curing as well as to educate my staff. We feed them organic restaurant scraps to reduce Zazu's waste," John says. "We really encourage people to eat less meat. It's the only way we'll ever make meat sustainable. You don't need to eat a pound of meat. "Mostly we want to show the commitment needed to breed, raise and slaughter an animal—how important the quality of their life is. By raising the pigs we show that there really is a sacred bond with these animals." Black Pig bacon is available online at blackpigmeatco.com. P H OT O : CO U R TE S Y O F B L AC K P I G M E A T C O M PA N Y ■cr Bringing Home the Bacon BY JEFF COX AT BLACK PIG MEAT COMPANY IN SEBASTOPOL, CALIFORNIA